The Age of Innocence

XV.

Newland Archer arrived at the Chiverses' on Friday evening, and onSaturday went conscientiously through all the rites appertaining to aweek-end at Highbank.

In the morning he had a spin in the ice-boat with his hostess and a fewof the hardier guests; in the afternoon he ”went over the farm” withReggie, and listened, in the elaborately appointed stables, to long andimpressive disquisitions on the horse; after tea he talked in a cornerof the firelit hall with a young lady who had professed herselfbroken-hearted when his engagement was announced, but was now eager totell him of her own matrimonial hopes; and finally, about midnight, heassisted in putting a gold-fish in one visitor's bed, dressed up aburglar in the bath-room of a nervous aunt, and saw in the small hoursby joining in a pillow-fight that ranged from the nurseries to thebasement. But on Sunday after luncheon he borrowed a cutter, and droveover to Skuytercliff.

People had always been told that the house at Skuytercliff was anItalian villa. Those who had never been to Italy believed it; so didsome who had. The house had been built by Mr. van der Luyden in hisyouth, on his return from the ”grand tour,” and in anticipation of hisapproaching marriage with Miss Louisa Dagonet. It was a large squarewooden structure, with tongued and grooved walls painted pale green andwhite, a Corinthian portico, and fluted pilasters between the windows.From the high ground on which it stood a series of terraces bordered bybalustrades and urns descended in the steel-engraving style to a smallirregular lake with an asphalt edge overhung by rare weeping conifers.To the right and left, the famous weedless lawns studded with”specimen” trees (each of a different variety) rolled away to longranges of grass crested with elaborate cast-iron ornaments; and below,in a hollow, lay the four-roomed stone house which the first Patroonhad built on the land granted him in 1612.

Against the uniform sheet of snow and the greyish winter sky theItalian villa loomed up rather grimly; even in summer it kept itsdistance, and the boldest coleus bed had never ventured nearer thanthirty feet from its awful front. Now, as Archer rang the bell, thelong tinkle seemed to echo through a mausoleum; and the surprise of thebutler who at length responded to the call was as great as though hehad been summoned from his final sleep.

Happily Archer was of the family, and therefore, irregular though hisarrival was, entitled to be informed that the Countess Olenska was out,having driven to afternoon service with Mrs. van der Luyden exactlythree quarters of an hour earlier.

”Mr. van der Luyden,” the butler continued, ”is in, sir; but myimpression is that he is either finishing his nap or else readingyesterday's Evening Post. I heard him say, sir, on his return fromchurch this morning, that he intended to look through the Evening Postafter luncheon; if you like, sir, I might go to the library door andlisten--”

But Archer, thanking him, said that he would go and meet the ladies;and the butler, obviously relieved, closed the door on him majestically.

A groom took the cutter to the stables, and Archer struck through thepark to the high-road. The village of Skuytercliff was only a mile anda half away, but he knew that Mrs. van der Luyden never walked, andthat he must keep to the road to meet the carriage. Presently,however, coming down a foot-path that crossed the highway, he caughtsight of a slight figure in a red cloak, with a big dog running ahead.He hurried forward, and Madame Olenska stopped short with a smile ofwelcome.

”Ah, you've come!” she said, and drew her hand from her muff.

The red cloak made her look gay and vivid, like the Ellen Mingott ofold days; and he laughed as he took her hand, and answered: ”I came tosee what you were running away from.”

Her face clouded over, but she answered: ”Ah, well--you will see,presently.”

The answer puzzled him. ”Why--do you mean that you've been overtaken?”

She shrugged her shoulders, with a little movement like Nastasia's, andrejoined in a lighter tone: ”Shall we walk on? I'm so cold after thesermon. And what does it matter, now you're here to protect me?”

The blood rose to his temples and he caught a fold of her cloak.”Ellen--what is it? You must tell me.”

”Oh, presently--let's run a race first: my feet are freezing to theground,” she cried; and gathering up the cloak she fled away across thesnow, the dog leaping about her with challenging barks. For a momentArcher stood watching, his gaze delighted by the flash of the redmeteor against the snow; then he started after her, and they met,panting and laughing, at a wicket that led into the park.

She looked up at him and smiled. ”I knew you'd come!”

”That shows you wanted me to,” he returned, with a disproportionate joyin their nonsense. The white glitter of the trees filled the air withits own mysterious brightness, and as they walked on over the snow theground seemed to sing under their feet.

”Where did you come from?” Madame Olenska asked.

He told her, and added: ”It was because I got your note.”

After a pause she said, with a just perceptible chill in her voice:”May asked you to take care of me.”

”I didn't need any asking.”

”You mean--I'm so evidently helpless and defenceless? What a poorthing you must all think me! But women here seem not--seem never tofeel the need: any more than the blessed in heaven.”

He lowered his voice to ask: ”What sort of a need?”

”Ah, don't ask me! I don't speak your language,” she retortedpetulantly.

The answer smote him like a blow, and he stood still in the path,looking down at her.

”What did I come for, if I don't speak yours?”

”Oh, my friend--!” She laid her hand lightly on his arm, and hepleaded earnestly: ”Ellen--why won't you tell me what's happened?”

She shrugged again. ”Does anything ever happen in heaven?”

He was silent, and they walked on a few yards without exchanging aword. Finally she said: ”I will tell you--but where, where, where?One can't be alone for a minute in that great seminary of a house, withall the doors wide open, and always a servant bringing tea, or a logfor the fire, or the newspaper! Is there nowhere in an American housewhere one may be by one's self? You're so shy, and yet you're sopublic. I always feel as if I were in the convent again--or on thestage, before a dreadfully polite audience that never applauds.”

”Ah, you don't like us!” Archer exclaimed.

They were walking past the house of the old Patroon, with its squatwalls and small square windows compactly grouped about a centralchimney. The shutters stood wide, and through one of the newly-washedwindows Archer caught the light of a fire.

”Why--the house is open!” he said.

She stood still. ”No; only for today, at least. I wanted to see it,and Mr. van der Luyden had the fire lit and the windows opened, so thatwe might stop there on the way back from church this morning.” She ranup the steps and tried the door. ”It's still unlocked--what luck!Come in and we can have a quiet talk. Mrs. van der Luyden has drivenover to see her old aunts at Rhinebeck and we shan't be missed at thehouse for another hour.”

He followed her into the narrow passage. His spirits, which haddropped at her last words, rose with an irrational leap. The homelylittle house stood there, its panels and brasses shining in thefirelight, as if magically created to receive them. A big bed ofembers still gleamed in the kitchen chimney, under an iron pot hungfrom an ancient crane. Rush-bottomed arm-chairs faced each otheracross the tiled hearth, and rows of Delft plates stood on shelvesagainst the walls. Archer stooped over and threw a log upon the embers.

Madame Olenska, dropping her cloak, sat down in one of the chairs.Archer leaned against the chimney and looked at her.

”You're laughing now; but when you wrote me you were unhappy,” he said.

”Yes.” She paused. ”But I can't feel unhappy when you're here.”

”I sha'n't be here long,” he rejoined, his lips stiffening with theeffort to say just so much and no more.

”No; I know. But I'm improvident: I live in the moment when I'm happy.”

The words stole through him like a temptation, and to close his sensesto it he moved away from the hearth and stood gazing out at the blacktree-boles against the snow. But it was as if she too had shifted herplace, and he still saw her, between himself and the trees, droopingover the fire with her indolent smile. Archer's heart was beatinginsubordinately. What if it were from him that she had been runningaway, and if she had waited to tell him so till they were here alonetogether in this secret room?

”Ellen, if I'm really a help to you--if you really wanted me tocome--tell me what's wrong, tell me what it is you're running awayfrom,” he insisted.

He spoke without shifting his position, without even turning to look ather: if the thing was to happen, it was to happen in this way, with thewhole width of the room between them, and his eyes still fixed on theouter snow.

For a long moment she was silent; and in that moment Archer imaginedher, almost heard her, stealing up behind him to throw her light armsabout his neck. While he waited, soul and body throbbing with themiracle to come, his eyes mechanically received the image of aheavily-coated man with his fur collar turned up who was advancingalong the path to the house. The man was Julius Beaufort.

”Ah--!” Archer cried, bursting into a laugh.

Madame Olenska had sprung up and moved to his side, slipping her handinto his; but after a glance through the window her face paled and sheshrank back.

”So that was it?” Archer said derisively.

”I didn't know he was here,” Madame Olenska murmured. Her hand stillclung to Archer's; but he drew away from her, and walking out into thepassage threw open the door of the house.

”Hallo, Beaufort--this way! Madame Olenska was expecting you,” he said.

During his journey back to New York the next morning, Archer relivedwith a fatiguing vividness his last moments at Skuytercliff.

Beaufort, though clearly annoyed at finding him with Madame Olenska,had, as usual, carried off the situation high-handedly. His way ofignoring people whose presence inconvenienced him actually gave them,if they were sensitive to it, a feeling of invisibility, ofnonexistence. Archer, as the three strolled back through the park, wasaware of this odd sense of disembodiment; and humbling as it was to hisvanity it gave him the ghostly advantage of observing unobserved.

Beaufort had entered the little house with his usual easy assurance;but he could not smile away the vertical line between his eyes. It wasfairly clear that Madame Olenska had not known that he was coming,though her words to Archer had hinted at the possibility; at any rate,she had evidently not told him where she was going when she left NewYork, and her unexplained departure had exasperated him. Theostensible reason of his appearance was the discovery, the very nightbefore, of a ”perfect little house,” not in the market, which wasreally just the thing for her, but would be snapped up instantly if shedidn't take it; and he was loud in mock-reproaches for the dance shehad led him in running away just as he had found it.

”If only this new dodge for talking along a wire had been a little bitnearer perfection I might have told you all this from town, and beentoasting my toes before the club fire at this minute, instead oftramping after you through the snow,” he grumbled, disguising a realirritation under the pretence of it; and at this opening Madame Olenskatwisted the talk away to the fantastic possibility that they might oneday actually converse with each other from street to street, oreven--incredible dream!--from one town to another. This struck fromall three allusions to Edgar Poe and Jules Verne, and such platitudesas naturally rise to the lips of the most intelligent when they aretalking against time, and dealing with a new invention in which itwould seem ingenuous to believe too soon; and the question of thetelephone carried them safely back to the big house.

Mrs. van der Luyden had not yet returned; and Archer took his leave andwalked off to fetch the cutter, while Beaufort followed the CountessOlenska indoors. It was probable that, little as the van der Luydensencouraged unannounced visits, he could count on being asked to dine,and sent back to the station to catch the nine o'clock train; but morethan that he would certainly not get, for it would be inconceivable tohis hosts that a gentleman travelling without luggage should wish tospend the night, and distasteful to them to propose it to a person withwhom they were on terms of such limited cordiality as Beaufort.

Beaufort knew all this, and must have foreseen it; and his taking thelong journey for so small a reward gave the measure of his impatience.He was undeniably in pursuit of the Countess Olenska; and Beaufort hadonly one object in view in his pursuit of pretty women. His dull andchildless home had long since palled on him; and in addition to morepermanent consolations he was always in quest of amorous adventures inhis own set. This was the man from whom Madame Olenska was avowedlyflying: the question was whether she had fled because his importunitiesdispleased her, or because she did not wholly trust herself to resistthem; unless, indeed, all her talk of flight had been a blind, and herdeparture no more than a manoeuvre.

Archer did not really believe this. Little as he had actually seen ofMadame Olenska, he was beginning to think that he could read her face,and if not her face, her voice; and both had betrayed annoyance, andeven dismay, at Beaufort's sudden appearance. But, after all, if thiswere the case, was it not worse than if she had left New York for theexpress purpose of meeting him? If she had done that, she ceased to bean object of interest, she threw in her lot with the vulgarest ofdissemblers: a woman engaged in a love affair with Beaufort ”classed”herself irretrievably.

No, it was worse a thousand times if, judging Beaufort, and probablydespising him, she was yet drawn to him by all that gave him anadvantage over the other men about her: his habit of two continents andtwo societies, his familiar association with artists and actors andpeople generally in the world's eye, and his careless contempt forlocal prejudices. Beaufort was vulgar, he was uneducated, he waspurse-proud; but the circumstances of his life, and a certain nativeshrewdness, made him better worth talking to than many men, morally andsocially his betters, whose horizon was bounded by the Battery and theCentral Park. How should any one coming from a wider world not feelthe difference and be attracted by it?

Madame Olenska, in a burst of irritation, had said to Archer that heand she did not talk the same language; and the young man knew that insome respects this was true. But Beaufort understood every turn of herdialect, and spoke it fluently: his view of life, his tone, hisattitude, were merely a coarser reflection of those revealed in CountOlenski's letter. This might seem to be to his disadvantage with CountOlenski's wife; but Archer was too intelligent to think that a youngwoman like Ellen Olenska would necessarily recoil from everything thatreminded her of her past. She might believe herself wholly in revoltagainst it; but what had charmed her in it would still charm her, eventhough it were against her will.

Thus, with a painful impartiality, did the young man make out the casefor Beaufort, and for Beaufort's victim. A longing to enlighten herwas strong in him; and there were moments when he imagined that all sheasked was to be enlightened.

That evening he unpacked his books from London. The box was full ofthings he had been waiting for impatiently; a new volume of HerbertSpencer, another collection of the prolific Alphonse Daudet's brillianttales, and a novel called ”Middlemarch,” as to which there had latelybeen interesting things said in the reviews. He had declined threedinner invitations in favour of this feast; but though he turned thepages with the sensuous joy of the book-lover, he did not know what hewas reading, and one book after another dropped from his hand.Suddenly, among them, he lit on a small volume of verse which he hadordered because the name had attracted him: ”The House of Life.” Hetook it up, and found himself plunged in an atmosphere unlike any hehad ever breathed in books; so warm, so rich, and yet so ineffablytender, that it gave a new and haunting beauty to the most elementaryof human passions. All through the night he pursued through thoseenchanted pages the vision of a woman who had the face of EllenOlenska; but when he woke the next morning, and looked out at thebrownstone houses across the street, and thought of his desk in Mr.Letterblair's office, and the family pew in Grace Church, his hour inthe park of Skuytercliff became as far outside the pale of probabilityas the visions of the night.

”Mercy, how pale you look, Newland!” Janey commented over thecoffee-cups at breakfast; and his mother added: ”Newland, dear, I'venoticed lately that you've been coughing; I do hope you're not lettingyourself be overworked?” For it was the conviction of both ladiesthat, under the iron despotism of his senior partners, the young man'slife was spent in the most exhausting professional labours--and he hadnever thought it necessary to undeceive them.

The next two or three days dragged by heavily. The taste of the usualwas like cinders in his mouth, and there were moments when he felt asif he were being buried alive under his future. He heard nothing ofthe Countess Olenska, or of the perfect little house, and though he metBeaufort at the club they merely nodded at each other across thewhist-tables. It was not till the fourth evening that he found a noteawaiting him on his return home. ”Come late tomorrow: I must explainto you. Ellen.” These were the only words it contained.

The young man, who was dining out, thrust the note into his pocket,smiling a little at the Frenchness of the ”to you.” After dinner hewent to a play; and it was not until his return home, after midnight,that he drew Madame Olenska's missive out again and re-read it slowly anumber of times. There were several ways of answering it, and he gaveconsiderable thought to each one during the watches of an agitatednight. That on which, when morning came, he finally decided was topitch some clothes into a portmanteau and jump on board a boat that wasleaving that very afternoon for St. Augustine.